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Limitations Regarding Direct AVB Audio Connection to a Mac

While you can connect a MOTU Pro Audio interface to a computer running macOS 10.10 or later with just an ethernet cable, there are some performance drawbacks compared to connecting with USB or Thunderbolt.

Apple's current implementation of direct AVB audio streaming in macOS (first introduced in macOS 10.10) does not allow the use of third party drivers. You will not be able to use the MOTU Pro Audio driver when connecting your MOTU interface to your Mac via Ethernet for the purposes of multi-channel audio I/O. Using Apple's AVB audio driver has several limitations. These include:

1) Sample Rates of 44.1 kHz, 88.2 kHz and 176.4 kHz are not supported.
2) The MOTU Audio Tools application is not supported.
3) MIDI is not supported.
4) Increased latency between the interface and computer when compared to USB and Thunderbolt connections.
5) Audio MIDI Setup settings for the AVB device are not saved upon reboot.